Gibson and hipster consumerism in Zero History
Successful as he’s been, William Gibson has always been something of a misfit. Gibson is best known for his first novel and cyberpunk classic Neuromancer. But the extent to which Gibson is a cyberpunk author is debatable. Sometimes it feels like the intersection between Gibson and cyberpunk is incidental. There’s no doubt that Gibson has some sort of interest in a technology-obsessed culture, but I’m not sure that his interest overlaps that of his (subject defined) readers.
Stories like Burning Chrome and Neuromancer made Gibson’s books something of a fetish for hackers, not least because of the fact that in the stories hackers themselves are portrayed as nerd superheroes. Hence the alignment between anything Gibson writes and the cyberpunk community. However, with that said, it seems like Gibson’s interest is subtly different from those of his peers: Gibson’s interest in technology is its allure and the desire for the new because it’s new. This manifests itself initially in a delight and longing for custom-built technologies and products, but becomes more obvious with time, and even more so in his most recent writings. As Gibson’s bibliography crosses into the twenty-first century, we get a shift away from the familiar cyberpunk worlds of Neuromancer and into a world that parallels our own. This brings us to the Bigend Trilogy including its finale novel Zero History published in 2010.
In a nutshell, the plot of Zero History tells of two freelancers (of sorts) hired to locate a secret uber-cool clothing company for the purpose of using their designs to win a U.S. military uniform contract. There’s a bit more to it than that, but not too much. The rest is either filler or part of the third act action sequence with its final McGuffin reveal.
Zero History, like the previous novels of the trilogy, is obsessed to a disturbing degree with the cool. I might not remember the protagonist’s (or anyone else’s) physical features, but I can be sure I’ll always know what they’re wearing. A non-trivial amount of prose is dedicated to describing people’s clothes: its colours, materials, eccentric features, and general desirability. This focus is epitomized in the plot trajectory in which Hollis Henry receives her so-cool-anyone-who-sees-it-wets-themselves Gabriel Hounds jacket (hipster+12), the maker of which she’s to find. When did Gibson become a voice for hipster consumerism?
He probably always was[1], the only thing that’s changed is that now’s he’s focusing on a familiar milieu.
A few more general comments: Zero History is a deeply flawed novel. The premise is sound and intriguing: the intersection between the fashion of the military, fashion of the street, and the different control implicit in each. That’s not the problem. One problem is the poor plot progression: the novel proceeds as follows: Protagonists go to A (wherein the clothing/food/coolness is described) to talk to someone and get information, then they get a call, so they go back to the hotel and then later go to B to talk to someone, repeat some of the stuff they’ve already been told, get told some new stuff, and decide who to talk to next. The other problem I’d mention is the characters: they lack obvious willpower or motivation aside from some underlying sense of being capable, (although it’s never quite clear what they’re capable at). I’d recommend this at Amazon, it’s, well it’s funny.
[1] Neuromancer was special because it made hacking and (the not-yet-existent) internet cool. It described a world in which underground communities and interests based around software and computing could flourish. What’s more, those early cyberpunk novels already displayed Gibson’s obsession with ownership of the cool, think of all the (especially custom-built) hardware that is caressingly described there.
